Browncoat vs Lab Coat
by Da Phoenix 13
Summary: Crossover with Dr. Horrible, set pre-Act I and post-Firefly 1.14. A bank heist gone horribly awry sends Dr. Horrible to the Firefly-verse. Captain Tightpants becomes Captain Hammer.


Disclaimer: Joss owns it all. I own nothing but the DVDs. And I only got into the Firefly fandom about two weeks ago, so... please be gentle. =)

* * *

"...Zoe, I'm going to need you fully armed and ready to shoot if they don't take too kindly to us," Mal told his crew as they all gathered in _Serenity_'s cargo bay to prepare for their latest caper. "And Jayne, you take a sniper rifle and hide up in the hills, give us some support from above. The rest of you, stay with _Serenity, _it's the safest place for you all to be in a sticky situation like this. Any questions?"

The Big Damn Crew just looked at one another for a moment. "I thought you were just going to visit your parents," Simon said after a while. "Why's it necessary for you all to be armed?"

"They're gonna be gorram pissed because I haven't come by in eight years, that's why," Mal explained gruffly.

"So, the part where I pretend to be your wife is necessary because…?" Inara asked him.

Mal stuttered, thrown off-guard by her very reasonable question. "Stop asking me so many tough questions! I'm the captain of this boat, and as the captain I –"

But he never got to say what it was he got to do as the captain of the "boat", for at that moment there was a flash of yellow light and a man with short blonde hair appeared among them, dressed in a dark gray hoodie, with goggles covering his eyes and a stethoscope around his neck.

Grinning, the man pulled up his goggles, but then he groaned as he took in his surroundings. "This isn't Goliath National Bank… I knew I should have tried the Transmatter Ray instead!" he said, resting the goggles on his head. "Stupid teleporter sent me to the wrong – "

_Click click click click._

Mal, Zoe, Jayne, and Wash had all cocked their weapons, pointing their guns directly at the newcomer. His blue eyes widened, and he put his hands over his head immediately.

"Who are you, tiny?" Mal growled.

The man's face was white as a sheet, and he blinked heavily several times before replying. "There's been some kind of mistake. I was supposed to end up in a bank vault in Los Angeles but…"

"Don't play games with us," Jayne said. "There's no such planet as Los Angeles."

"_Planet_? What…" The newcomer took another look around _Serenity_'s hull. "Where am I? And why are you all dressed like extras in a Clint Eastwood movie?"

"Do you have any idea what he's talkin' about?" Kaylee whispered to Book. The shepherd shook his head slowly, looking perplexed.

"You're making fun of the way we're dressed when you're in _that_ ridiculous getup?" said Wash, grinning as he looked at the man's completely average zip-up hooded sweatshirt. Wash's zinger was punctuated by the hum of a fiddle on the soundtrack.

"Am I in space? Why's space sound like Texas?" the man muttered to himself, looking around to see where the sound had come from.

"We're not in Texas, son," Book told him. "We're lightyears away from that system." The man did a double take, looking even more confused than he had a second ago.

"Who are you?" Mal repeated, his gun still pointed at the man who had appeared on his ship.

"I'm Bill- Dr. Horrible," he said, rather tentatively for someone who sported the name "Dr. Horrible." He blinked heavily three or four times. "Can you put the guns away now?"

Zoe lowered her sawed-off shotgun a hair. "Sir, he's obviously disoriented and unarmed," she told Mal quietly. "I don't think he's much of a danger to us…"

"He does look pretty harmless," Jayne agreed, still training Vera on the intruder. "I mean, look at the…" He used some choice Mandarin syllables to describe Dr. Horrible's puniness. "Even Simon could probably do more damage than he could!"

"That's true," Simon agreed. Then he realized he'd just been insulted. "Hey!"

"It's gonna be bloody," came a quiet voice from the corner. River shuffled into the light, her long dirty hair partially hiding her pale, pointed face.

Simon exchanged a glance with Mal. "River?" he asked his sister tentatively. "What are you trying to say?"

But River took no notice of anyone as she continued to speak, in her usual flat voice, almost like she was in some kind of trance. "Head up, Billy buddy, there's no time for mercy…"

No one seemed to know how to react to these cryptic words. Kaylee, Simon, and Inara shivered slightly, while Book and Jayne looked at one another in confusion. Mal, on the other hand, crowed in triumph and took a step forward, pressing the barrel of his gun against Dr. Horrible's forehead.

"I knew it," he said. "You're here to kill me, aren't you? So… what? Are you Alliance? Bounty hunter? Evil teleporting wizard?"

"None…" Dr. Horrible whimpered, his eyes screwed tight with fear as he felt the cold metal of the gun press against his head. "I'm just… trying… to change the world…"

"Which world?" Wash asked curiously. Dr. Horrible's blue eyes flew open to look at him in confusion.

"What do you…" He seemed to give up trying to understand what was going on. "Look, I wanted to transport myself into the bank vault to grab some gold bars, you know, upset the status quo and all…"

"You're working against the Alliance?" Mal said, now clearly unsure of whether to shoot him or put a brotherly arm around his shoulders.

"Well, I say that makes you one of us!" Kaylee said in her usual cheerful way, flashing the newcomer a huge smile. Everyone rolled their eyes at how quickly she had decided to trust this stranger.

"Does not," Jayne snarled, his gun still leveled at Dr. Horrible. "We ain't letting any more civilians join this here crew, you got that? We've already got two too many as it is." He jerked his head in the Tams' general direction.

"Well, maybe he'll come in handy for us. Didn't you say you were a doctor?" Kaylee asked the newcomer curiously as her eyes traveled up and down his body, a flirtatious smile curling her lips.

"Er – yeah," Dr. Horrible said nervously. "I know I don't look much like one yet…" He gestured at the stethoscope dangling pathetically around his neck. "…but I'm working on that."

"We can always use a doctor on this boat," Kaylee told Mal enthusiastically.

"We've already _got_ a doctor on this boat!" Simon said, looking hurt. But Kaylee was too transfixed by Dr. Horrible's adorkable good looks to take in a single word of what he'd said. "Kayleeeeeeeeee!" he whined, for once failing to get the pretty mechanic's attention.

"Well, I'm not… um… exactly a medical doctor," Dr. Horrible explained. "It's more a title than anything else."

Jayne snorted condescendingly. "So… what? You've got a Dh. P. in… in _horribleness_?"

"Ph. D.," Book corrected automatically.

"Can we all stop chit-chatting and get back to the part where he's going to kill me?" Mal snapped. He hadn't yet lowered his gun; it was still trained directly at Dr. Horrible's head, his finger resting on the trigger as he waited for his captive to make a wrong move.

"I don't want to kill anyone!" Dr. Horrible protested, holding his hands up defensively. "I'm just out for social change – "

They were interrupted by an alarm blaring from somewhere overhead, which caused them all to look up in, um, alarm. "Reavers, sir?" Zoe asked, looking worried.

Mal's face had gone very grim, and he spouted off a long string of Mandarin profanity. "Maybe," he said. "Wash, Zoe, head to the bridge. Kaylee, engine room. And Jayne, don't take your eye off this gorram magician for a second."

"What about me?" Inara asked.

"Get back to your shuttle, whore," Mal told her. Dr. Horrible flinched at his language, but none of the crew took any notice. "That way, if they board us, you can take off, save yourself."

"Don't call me a whore," Inara retorted. The alarm kept blaring and the rest of the crew darted to their posts, but the two of them kept gazing into one another's eyes, seeming almost ready to bust out in some kind of love duet.

"Mal, get up here!" Wash called over the ship's intercom.

"In a minute," he replied. "I'm busy sharing a sexually charged glance with Inara."

"Yeah he is," Inara said, her voice low and sultry as she ran her tongue along her lower lip.

Jayne looked between the two of them, getting more hot and bothered as the seconds ticked by. "I'll be in my bunk," he finally murmured to Simon, handing him Vera as he stalked off, walking a little too stiffly to be entirely natural.

Finally, Mal sprinted off to the bridge as Inara blew a kiss after him, finally turning to head back to her shuttle. Book went to his room to grab his… book… to pray for safe passage through the attack, leaving the Tam siblings alone with Dr. Horrible.

Dr. Horrible looked from River, who was wandering around the deck barefoot and pigeontoed muttering under her breath about frozen yogurt, to Simon, who was still trying to figure out how to hold Vera. "This is all a mistake," he insisted to the young surgeon. "I don't want to cause you… _space cowboys_ any trouble – "

"You said you're looking for a doctor's uniform?" Simon interrupted, far less hostile than his shipmates.

"Er –yeah, that'd be great," Dr. Horrible said uncertainly. "This stethoscope isn't really doing a whole lot in the way of intimidating my nemesis – or it won't, once I actually make any enemies."

"Great," Simon said distractedly. "Look, I've got a white lab coat that you can have, if you want."

Dr. Horrible looked taken aback at the sudden generosity of his captor. "You'd just give it to me?" he said suspiciously.

"Sure!" Simon said with too much enthusiasm. "I feel a sort of connection with you, a kinship, if you will… we've got a lot in common, you know! I say what's mine is yours."

But the evil genius wasn't buying, and was more than a little unnerved by a guy he'd known for five minutes and currently held a gun to his head claiming kinship with him. "Look, kid, I'm being held hostage by Chinese-speaking space cowboys…"

"Chinese is a nationality," River corrected loudly from across the cargo bay. "We speak Mandarin."

Dr. Horrible rolled his eyes. "What-ev-_er_. If I get the coat, what's the catch?"

Simon looked to make sure no one was listening, then he said, "I'll only give you the lab coat if you leave _Serenity_ right now. You know, disappear. Go back the way you came, you crazy wizard."

"I don't believe in magic."

"Do we have a deal?" Simon asked sharply, not in the mood to play games.

Dr. Horrible blinkingly looked at the gun still leveled at his head, and thought of Moist and Penny waiting for him back in Los Angeles, and decided that leaving immediately was indeed his best option, especially if he got a sweet coat out of the deal. "Why do you want to get rid of me?"

Simon sighed. "Because Kaylee likes you a little too much."

Dr. Horrible smiled shyly, blinking heavily. "Um… Which one's Kaylee? The one with all the guns?"

"No."

"Is she the whore?"

"No," Simon said, looking offended that he'd think of Kaylee as a whore.

"…Your crazy little sister who keeps talking about death and doom and fro yo?"

"No!" Simon exploded. "She's the mechanic! The smart, beautiful, sweet girl who was giving you goo-goo eyes the entire time she was here!"

"I'm sorry!" Dr. Horrible said, shielding himself more from the gun than from Simon's not-all-that-scary rage. "I'll take the coat and go."

"Good," Simon said, finally lowering Vera as he pulled the coat out from under his shirt.

"Wait, have you just been walking around hiding that under your shirt?" he asked, looking from the coat to Simon in confusion.

"Don't ask questions!" Simon said testily. "Do you want the thing or not?"

"I'll take it," the doctor said quickly, snatching it and sliding his arms into the white starched sleeves. "Wow," he said in awe as he buttoned the buttons along his shoulder. "Perfect fit!"

River and Simon looked appraisingly at Dr. Horrible in his new getup. Though he and Simon were around the same height, the lab coat was too big on the villain, for some reason. The hem was a little too long, the sleeves nearly came up to his wrist when they should have ended at his elbow, and it was clearly too baggy around his torso. "Looks horrible," River said after a moment, giggling at her own unimaginative pun.

"It does seem a little bit… too big for you," Simon said gently.

Dr. Horrible gave himself an appraising look, then looked the surgeon straight in the eye. "No it doesn't," he said defiantly, folding his arms.

"Hey!"

The three of them looked up to see Mal standing on the walkway, pointing his shotgun at Dr. Horrible once more.

"No touching guns," River moaned as Dr. Horrible sighed and put his ungloved hands above his head once more.

Mal jumped down the stairs in a single leap, walking closer to the doctors. "You stealing from my crew now, blinky?" he said menacingly.

"I- I- I-" Dr. Horrible stammered, blinking furiously.

"Mal, it's okay," Simon said quickly. "I gave it to him – "

"I don't think too kindly of those that steal from my kin, tiny!" Mal said, waving his gun around as he spoke.

"Seriously, I'm not going to need it again," Simon said. But Mal didn't seem to be listening, as he was far too intent on giving a speech on the importance of unity and family among his crew or whatnot. No one was really listening, as the Tams had heard it all before and Dr. Horrible was a bit distracted by the shotgun Mal was waving around.

"Ooh, shiny new coat, Dr. Horrible!" Kaylee enthused as she came down the stairs, followed by Zoe and Wash.

Dr. Horrible examined the coat once more. "It doesn't really reflect light all that well…"

"Stop talking to her," Simon hissed. Dr. Horrible fell silent.

"…if you take anything from my crew, you're stealing from _me_, because what we got 'round here's a socialist – Wash!" Mal said, interrupting his own monologue. "What was that thing on our radar screen?"

"I think it was just the body of that red-suited annoyingly philosophical bounty hunter you threw off the ship a while back," Wash shrugged. "Not sure why that set off the alarm."

"You sure he was dead?" Kaylee asked shakily.

"He'd better be," Jayne said, finally emerging from his bunk. "We don't want to visit that old plot contrivance again."

"And how!" Mal agreed. "Now let's get the airlock open so we can suck this rutter out into space."

"Wait!" Dr. Horrible pleaded. He desperately needed to create some sort of distraction so he could make a run for it, but his normally-flawless criminal mind was coming up blank. "You say you like magic?" he asked desperately. Without waiting for a reply, he held his ungloved fists out, palms up, and caused his fingers to do the wave. He hoped that this seemingly useless skill of his would be enough to save him here.

The crew all gaped at him. "How'd you do that?" Jayne asked, putting his own fists together and attempting to imitate the scientist.

"No, no, it was more like this," Mal insisted, his fingers making jerkier movements than the smooth flow Dr. Horrible's had. His shotgun fell from his hands, forgotten on the ground.

"You're all doing it wrong!" River shouted, performing a perfect finger wave.

The crew of _Serenity_ sufficiently occupied, Dr. Horrible fished in his pocket for his secret weapon: the Alternate Universe Portal Ray of Doom. It was nothing more than a red button that was supposed to send him to an alternate universe… he'd never tested it, but it was his only chance of getting back to his own time in Los Angeles, as his malfunctioning teleporter had apparently bent the rules of time and space enough to prevent him from just taking one of their shuttles home.

"Please work!" he squeaked to the button, getting ready to press it.

Unfortunately, Mal chose this moment to stop trying to make his fingers do the wave as he noticed Dr. Horrible trying to escape. "Oh no you don't, tiny!" he yelled, snatching the nearest weapon he could reach – a hammer lying on top of one of the crates of stolen goods – and grabbing Dr. Horrible by the arm just as he pressed the button.

FLASH!

The crew of _Serenity_ blinked as a white light enveloped their captain and the intruder. When the light dimmed, they were both gone.

"Cap'n!" Kaylee murmured in shock.

"Mal," Zoe whispered, her face stricken.

"Nooooooooooooo!" Inara cried, falling to her knees in anguish.

"Where'd they go?" Wash asked, looking around the cargo bay in the vain hope that somehow they'd missed them.

"The space between spaces?" Book suggested weakly.

"Captain Hammer," River said, so quietly only Simon could hear her.

"No, _mei-mei_, that was Captain Reynolds," he corrected her, looking bemused. "Though he was holding a hammer when he – "

"Would you all keep it down?" Jayne barked, his fists still together, fingers wiggling feebly. "I'm on the edge of a breakthrough."

"We've got to get him back!" Inara declared, walking over to the space where her lover captain used to be, touching the ground reverently.

"Never coming back," River announced. "Brains scrambled, won't remember _Serenity._ Corporate tool, cheesy on the outside."

"What's she talkin' about?" Kaylee asked Simon.

"No idea," Simon said honestly, too pleased that Kaylee was paying him attention again to worry about River's crazybabble.

"Maaaaaaaal," Inara sobbed from her spot on the ground.

"The hammer is his penis," River insisted.

No one listened, as usual, and _Serenity _continued to float through space to the sound of banjos. Or something. Crazy space western.


End file.
